Neighbors Protest Plan To Remove Oaks

A canopy of old oak trees on Long Key Ridge in Davie soon will be replaced by asphalt and traffic fumes.

The state Department of Transportation is getting ready to remove up to 11 oaks and palms as it widens the last two-lane stretch of Flamingo Road between Griffin Road and State Road 84.

Neighbors are angry that the state is removing some of the towering oaks, which are part of a natural forest covering the 5,000-year-old ridge.

The trees were not in the original path of the road. The state curved the new alignment of the six-lane highway and an adjacent canal about 50 feet westward to spare property owned by Flamingo Gardens.

``These are valuable trees that are not in the path of the road,`` said Lillian Streed of Davie. ``They`re putting a kink in the road to save everything Flamingo Gardens owns. In the process, they`re tearing down old oak trees.``

The 60-acre botanical park and attraction at 3250 Flamingo Road, which caters to tour buses and visitors, features a collection of champion oaks, rare exotic trees, a wetlands area and an aviary.

Without the curve, the new road would cut a swath through the gardens` parking lot, citrus stand and about a dozen champion oaks and rare exotic trees, said Flamingo Gardens executive director Sandra Manning.

``Of our 22 champion trees, eight to 10 trees would have been lost and not replaceable,`` Manning said.

``You`ve got to weigh the lesser of two evils,`` said Eugene Lozano, project manager for the Department of Transportation.

In 1990, Streed`s family wrote a letter to then-Gov. Bob Martinez asking him to intervene.

Department of Transportation District Secretary Rick Chesser responded in writing, promising to replace the 11 trees by planting 50 new oaks.

Chesser conceded that the state relied on the opinion of Flamingo Gardens horticulturists in deciding which trees would come down. But the state`s landscape architect confirmed their findings, he said.

Trees are not the only reason that Flamingo Gardens was spared. Buying a piece of the tourist attraction would have cost thousands of dollars more than the vacant property on the west side of Flamingo Road, where the oaks are coming down, Lozano said.

Manning said the park did not ask the state to move the road.

Flamingo Gardens was established in 1927 by Broward County citrus pioneer Floyd L. Wray and his wife, Jane. The exotic trees were planted in the late 1920s.

David Bar-Zvi, the gardens` curator, said he shares the concerns of the park`s neighbors.